


the lights in the shadow

by descents



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, Denial of Feelings, Drinking, Implied Relationships, M/M, Team Bonding, Unresolved Sexual Tension, that one fetch quest that leads you right through a giants' nest to the Greater Mistral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 04:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20576225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descents/pseuds/descents
Summary: In the Emerald Graves, the Inquisition gets into the Chargers’ good stuff, and Dorian learns the latest news out of Par Vollen.





	the lights in the shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Chant of Light, Canticle of Benedictions 4:11

From the trunk behind his bedroll, the Bull cracked open the lone, custom-made, acid-proof cask he’d carted with him from Skyhold.

It had been a bitch of a day after taking down the frost dragon in the Southfinger Watch, but they were finally back at camp, and well on their way to honoring the time-old dragon hunting tradition of getting ripshit drunk.

They were camped for the night just outside Din’an Hanin, the Inquisition’s latest stop on what Lavellan had twice so far called the “desecrated graves of my ancestors tour of Thedas.” Impossible to tell, from her ciphered little face, whether or not that was a joke. She’d make a Ben-Hassrath yet.

The thought stung. The Bull hoisted the cask onto his good shoulder and withdrew from the solitude of his tent back out to the center of camp.

Inside the circle of firelight, the boss was splayed out on her back in the lush grass, stretching, catlike, all the way down to her bare toes.

With the one hand, she hadn’t yet let go of the sleek new lightning staff she’d picked up off of — well, out of — the last of the giants in the Vallasdahlen they’d had to go through on their way back. It was lying beside her like a beloved pet, thrumming, almost a purr.

With the other hand, she was draining a drinking horn cut from one of the dragon’s hollow tail spikes, still faintly emitting puffs of cool fog.

Horn empty, she let it fall to the ground with abandon. “Andruil’enaste, Vivienne, when you took its leg right out from under it — I could barely believe that worked.”

“Well, it’s only fair to thank you for holding it there, darling,” said Vivienne, who was sitting as primly on an upturned barrel as if it were a throne, “with your —”

She made a genteel grasping gesture, pulling her fingers downward.

The Bull raised his eyebrow in the direction of Lavellan’s horn. She grinned and held it up to him. Frost spread instantly up the sides as he filled it.

From somewhere behind the Bull, Dorian said, “A toast! To the Herald of Andraste, for toying with demonic forces beyond our comprehension.”

“Thank you, Dorian,” said Lavellan, and drank with an unconcealed wince.

Vivienne had conjured a crystal champagne flute from somewhere on her person. The Bull had a strong suspicion it was made from the same stuff as her glowing witch blade.

“No, thank you, my dear,” she said to his proffered hand.

The Bull let his eyes slide, finally, to Dorian, leaning back against a table leg at the edge of the circle, pauldrons unbuckled, flames flickering across the hollows of his face.

He went over. Hopeless, from this angle, not to loom imposingly. Dorian looked up at him.

“Care for a drink?”

“Very much so,” said Dorian. He finished the dregs of his ale, throat moving in the firelight. The Bull’s eyes lingered.

He was trying, these days, not to look. Easier, that way, not to fall into the magisterial spiked ditch surrounding every approach to Dorian.

He filled Dorian’s tankard and set the cask on the table. After a second’s thought, he settled down on the ground.

“Couldn’t see past the end of my own axe when your bomb went off,” the Bull said.

“I do like it when they can’t handle fire,” said Dorian, with great satisfaction. “Admirable of them, really. The innovators of the species. I hope it’ll catch on.” He took a draught and made an exaggerated face.

“Keep dreaming,” said the Bull, and grinned at him sidelong. “Still got beaten the hell up.”

“That’s why the Herald brought _you_, darling,” said Vivienne to Dorian, fingers lightly tracing her glass, “and we’re not having to discuss tawdry serials, or suffer our thoughts to be read aloud by that little demon boy, or —” No words would suffice for a description of Sera. She gave an eloquent shrug.

“I brought you because I wanted to have you with me,” said Lavellan loyally, trying in vain to suppress a fit of coughs. “And — your fire mines. But mostly — Sylaise protect us, I forgot how vile this is.”

“I do so love to be appreciated for my tireless, noble work,” said Dorian. “Glowing praise from Andraste’s chosen herself. The adoring public, who we haven’t had to kill hardly any of today, the luxury accommodations, this fine Orlesian vintage —”

“Don’t forget the pay,” said the Bull.

“The religious fervor,” murmured Lavellan to the sky.

“The lovely Chantry sisters! How could they have slipped my mind?”

“The high society,” said Vivienne, bone dry as the champagne that wasn’t in her glass.

“Why, Madame de Fer,” said Dorian, “what fault could any courtier in Val Royeaux find in the company of a Dalish apostate, a Tevinter exile, and a —” he hesitated for the tiniest fraction of a second — "horned sellsword?”

“I can hardly begin to imagine,” said Vivienne. She came over to the table and poured herself an experimental mouthful from the Bull’s cask. Her glass smoked, very slightly.

“Mm,” she said after the first sip, expressionless. “A charmingly rustic concoction.”

Lavellan — who’d complained to the Bull of not being able to taste for a week after the Fereldan Frostback — choked on a laugh.

  
In the lull, the Bull let his eyes drift around their camp. It was a little clearing typical of the Emerald Graves, a lavish elven landscape, all right if you went for that sort of thing — Prophet’s Laurel wreathing the treeline, dust motes over the fire winking as they turned to sparks, waterfalls tumbling in the distance, the kind of rich, loamy soil tent pegs sank right into. The profuse greenery was more reminiscent of Seheron than most of the frigid south, but the leaf shapes were all wrong.  
  
It was a bad camp for an ambush — lying enticingly just in front of the desolate tomb’s labyrinthine courtyard, dark crevices in every corner of the ancient stonework that had even crumbled gracefully — but well enough guarded for the Bull’s peace of mind. An Inquisition scout patrolled the perimeter in the far, darkened distance.

A lone, white, braid-horned halla tripped gracefully along the edge of the firelight and disappeared into the trees. Lavellan loved it out here, in this part of the world. The Bull could understand why. Vivienne tolerated it, as she resolutely tolerated most things about the Inquisition. Dorian hated it, or pretended to hate it. It was hard to tell, with Dorian, where the pretense ended.

Dorian’s smoothly muscled thigh was resting flush against the Bull’s, the skirt of his robes pulled up by each successive drink slouching him lower and lower to the ground.

So much for the Bull’s calculated distance, neither too carefully far nor too obtrusively close. And since when did he give so much thought to where he sat in camp? He’d had less of a headache almost losing a horn on his last mission in Alam.

Dorian settled down yet further, relaxed as a just-fed bird of prey, and the Bull steered his mind to other things.

  
Lavellan was two more drinks in when she rolled over onto her stomach, heedlessly crossing and uncrossing her legs, and said, “Bull, tell me the truth.”

“Always, boss,” said the Bull, tilting his tankard toward her.

Her serious look tipped into mirth. “Have you really hurt yourself worse in bed than getting stabbed and poisoned by a Ben-Hassrath assassin?”

The Bull felt Dorian’s slight double-take without having to look. “Poisoned? No. Stabbed? Just the one time.”

“What in the world _with_?”

“A knife,” the Bull explained.

“Naturally,” said Dorian, under his breath.

“Come to think of it, had a full wrought-iron chandelier fall on me once, too, in Qunandar. Long story.”

“A _lit_ chandelier?” said Lavellan, her eyes dancing.

The Bull shrugged. “No worse than the ’vint setting half of Skyhold on fire.”

Lavellan burst out laughing. Dorian looked skyward in fruitless entreaty.

“I will admit to having heard that rumor,” said Vivienne, voice laced with mischief. Her champagne flute was slowly dissolving around the rim.

“J’ai trop hâte de l’entendre,” said Dorian poisonously. *

“The second-floor guest tower hangings, wasn’t it, dear?” she said. “During the Antivan delegation’s visit? After that dinner with the Marquês de Vição and his _charming_ son?”

“Happens to the best of us, I’m sure,” said Dorian, cheeks darkening almost imperceptibly.

“Mais certainement, mon cher,” said Vivienne, taking a small sip. †

“Not I,” said Lavellan, letting a little flame trickle around her hand, holding it up against the night sky.

“Lavellan, tell me the truth,” Dorian mimicked, not unkindly. “Whenever would you have had the opportunity?”

“Oh, not so long ago,” said Lavellan, with a dreamy look in her eye. “On a dawn lotus, in the haven of the spirit of Memory, in the Fade.”

A short silence fell.

“Well, whatever does it for you,” said the Bull.

With what looked like no small effort, Vivienne hid a smile behind her glass.

Lavellan said, “You’ve never wondered about getting off by being slowly brushed by the wings of a hundred dream-swans?”

“That would be a new one,” said the Bull.

“Having extra pairs of hands? Falling weightless through the void before the world was born?” She looked at him, hands folded under her sharp chin. Her eyes gleamed with reflected firelight.

Maybe a joke, that time. The Bull said, “Can’t knock it till I’ve tried it.”

Dorian said, “Maker, spare us, I was planning to sleep tonight; I don’t need to know what you’re getting up to metaphysically with that drab little elf on the other side of my canvas wall.” He turned to Vivienne as Lavellan cackled. “I’ll even stoop to hear tales of Orlesian degeneracy.”

The Bull looked over. “Don’t tell us nothing more exciting ever happened to the First Enchanter.”

Vivienne raised her eyebrows. One nail tapped the stem of her glass. She was really quite drunk, to be even considering dignifying him with a response.

She said idly, “Oh, there was all the excitement one could expect from a man of the Comte’s age. Although, when his wife joined us, we had the most delightful — interludes. I certainly was never _injured_, but… ”

“But?” said the Bull, with prurient interest.

“Mm,” she said, with a little smile, dematerializing her glass and standing up. “_Loath_ as I am to leave such convivial company, I’m afraid I must retire.”

“Yes, that bath of virgin blood isn’t going to draw itself,” said Dorian fondly.

She fluttered her fingers at him over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Night, Viv,” said Lavellan, and had a tiny flurry of snow flown at her for the familiarity. She laughed and melted it in midair.

  
“Doesn’t that ‘attract the attention of demons’?” said the Bull, in a fair imitation of Solas’ most prissy tone.

“Not yet,” said Lavellan with relish.

“I am begging you,” said Dorian.

Lavellan laughed, pulling out a deck of cards. “Wicked Grace?”

The Bull looked over. “Did you get those from Varric?”

“Yes, I’d never played before,” she said, trying and failing to shuffle the cards on her stomach without getting up.

“What stakes?” said Dorian.

Lavellan considered.

“Clothes,” suggested the Bull.

“You’re only wearing the one thing,” Dorian pointed out hastily.

“Winner gets the good stuff,” Lavellan said, waving a careless hand toward the sack of butchered dragon parts dripping slate-blue blood over by the potions table.

“Poor Vivienne,” said Dorian in delight.

“Oh, she already claimed all the blood,” said Lavellan with a sigh, “for that new demon-slaying rune we picked up in the Hissing —”

“Yes, don’t remind me,” said Dorian. “Well, Vivienne can help herself, I suppose; we’re full up on enchantments. Unless —” He tipped his head to her left hand.

“Oh, I’ll get Dagna to do something _nice_ to this one,” said Lavellan, with a possessive glance down at the new staff.

They debated various runes for an incomprehensible minute until Lavellan looked over at the Bull, who was absently rubbing his right horn where it had been iced up by that same Greater Mistral blood not eight hours ago. “Sorry to bore you, Bull.”

“No one could accuse you of being boring, boss.”

With a short laugh, she leaned over onto her elbow and dealt out the first hand.

  
An hour later and half a dragon carcass richer, the Bull flipped over the final Angel of Death with four Songs in his hand.

Dorian huffed.

“Better work on those barriers, ’vint,” said the Bull, waggling his eyebrow.

“Absolutely disgraceful,” said Dorian, feathers ruffled. “Neither of you self-serving ghouls bothered to tell me that Serpents are higher than Knights on this Maker-forsaken continent. In Vyrantium — well.” A natural integrity would not let him protest further.

The Bull patted his leg. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Even for a game where it was practically required, the Inquisitor had cheated outrageously, with such a believable play of innocent incompetence the Bull could barely bring himself to show her up. She could play the Dalish naïf quite well, when the occasion called for it.

Dorian’s incompetence, sadly, was not at all artificial.

“Mine was not a card-playing household,” said Dorian with a sigh, picking up his cards to hand back to Lavellan. “I spent my dissipate youth pursuing — risks other than gambling, shall we say.”

Lavellan, rifling through the discard pile, noted with a snort the number of Songs that were already in it. She eyed first the Bull and then his single garment and shook her head.

The Bull had cheated by virtue of also having one of Varric’s decks.

“I deserved that,” she said, and leaned across Dorian to punch the Bull in the shoulder, although she couldn’t quite reach, and had to hit him in the bicep. “Lucky for you, I like the armor I have. Viv’s modiste got all involved.”

“Maker,” said Dorian in disgust. “Where did you even hide them?”

“Hidden depths,” said the Bull.

Lavellan threw the pile of cards at him.

  
The cask was much lighter than it had been a few hours past. Cards forgotten, Lavellan had caught some fireflies and a blue-glowing nightmoth in a barrier bubble, and was floating them around to illuminate carvings on the columns of stone sheltering their clearing.

“Night like this, you could almost pretend this was a joyful place,” she said, hand smoothing the grass beside her.

“Don’t get maudlin,” said Dorian. “It’s barely a ‘place.’” He had fully reclined onto the ground, head propped up on his arm.

“Not in this age,” said Lavellan softly.

The Bull clapped her on the shoulder. “Sixth pint of this will do that to a body.”

She shook her head. “I just — I’m just very glad you’re all with me.”

Rising to her feet with studied grace, she freed her creatures with a light puff of air. She gave the two of them a small smile. “My Tevinter exile, and my horned sellsword.”

“That better not stick,” said the Bull. Dorian snorted behind his tankard.

Lavellan laughed and slipped out of the firelight to her rest.

  
Dorian raised a leisurely hand to revive the flames. Heat flared out from the fire pit.

He turned to face the Bull, the two of them alone in the circle of light.

“The Ben-Hassrath sent someone to try to kill you over the Storm Coast affair?” His face was serious. No fool, Dorian.

“Barely,” said the Bull. “A slap on the wrist. Well — a poisoned dagger in the neck.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

The Bull laughed. “Exactly what the boss said.”

“Yes, Maker forbid we care what becomes of you,” said Dorian with a shade of irritation. “If that’s a mere formality, I’d hate to think what would happen if you really provoked them.”

The Bull shifted his shoulder against the table leg. “Like I said, I’ve had worse.”

“Worse than being made —” and here Dorian gave voice to it for the first time — “Tal-Vashoth?”

The Bull blinked slowly. “Not something you need to be concerned about.” He rested his tankard on his thigh. “It’s hard for an outsider to understand.”

“Being forced to turn your back on your homeland and its restrictive moral code? You’re right, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Dorian said, and his voice was very gentle.

Struck, the Bull put his arm up behind him to cushion his head and regarded Dorian — his face shadowed, inscrutable, a statue of Hessarian in a southern Chantry. Yet another deserter and oathbreaker, to add to their number. What a pair they made.

Quietly, Dorian said, “For what it’s worth, it would be hard to do this without you.”

The Bull felt his skin go as tight as with a freshly-applied vitaar. He recognized this for the careful bridge it was, over Dorian’s field fortifications.

“Wasn’t planning to cut and run, outcast savage or no,” he said, twisting to reach up behind him and drain the last measure from the cask into his tankard. His shoulder protested a little.

As he turned back, Dorian quickly redirected his gaze to the flames.

“Is that why you’ve been much less obnoxiously forward than usual?” he said, looking determinedly straight ahead.

The Bull said, “It’s not that. Shit, look at you.”

Dorian raised his eyebrows in the direction of the fire.

Impossible, with Dorian, to tell what he truly wanted. A lifetime of shame and reprisal would do that, the Bull supposed, but it was alien to him. What terrible things humans did to each other, that this was made so difficult.

But the Bull hadn’t become a Ben-Hassrath spy in Ferelden and then, irreversibly, a Tal-Vashoth because he liked things to be simple.

He said, “I’m not in the habit of pushing myself on people who aren’t interested.”

“Whatever gave you that impression?” said Dorian, suddenly very involved in flicking a bit of dried grass off the base of his tankard.

“You, last month, in the Herald’s Rest,” said the Bull.

“Well, I was drunk,” said Dorian, reasonably. “You can’t trust anything I say when I’m drunk.” He occupied himself with a buckle on his greave.

“Right,” said the Bull, and waited.

Dorian finally glanced over at him. “And — the habits of plausible deniability die hard, when you’ve suffered from breaking them.” He wasn’t nearly drunk enough to be slurring his words, but his voice had taken on a certain rounded quality. “It’s easy enough, with an Antivan man, who I’ll never see again.”

“I knew you had it in for the boss’ Dalish drapery,” said the Bull, taking the olive branch.

“Mm, wouldn’t you like to know,” said Dorian.

The Bull snorted. Dorian contemplated the Bull over the rim of his tankard, his gaze flicking to the expanse of the Bull’s bare chest. He shook his head in some private amusement.

“Like I said, easy enough. Whereas.” A drop of his drink splashed onto his forearm with his gesture. “With you. I’ve been having to think about it — very carefully. Do I want — what I want — for me? Or for — my dear father?” He gave a faint wince. “Just trying to say it gets me twisted up in knots.”

“And?” prodded the Bull. “You want to keep tying yourself up? Or you want me to do it?”

“Well, the night’s still young,” said Dorian. It wasn’t entirely convincing as a joke.

The Bull had barely had his usual portion of the cask; there was no reason for him to be feeling so lightheaded. “Just say the word.”

“You make it sound so simple,” said Dorian.

“It is,” said the Bull.

At last Dorian was looking back at the Bull openly. The Bull grinned at him, easy. He wouldn’t push.

“Anyway,” he said, making to get up. His blood was pounding. “Offer’s on the table. You know it. Any time.”

A heartbeat passed.

Dorian reached out and caught the Bull’s arm — his sturdy, long-fingered hand not quite fitting all the way around — and pulled him down to kiss him.

The Bull stilled. Dorian’s mouth was shockingly hot. He tasted of juniper.

The Bull rolled over on top of Dorian, ignoring his startled sounds at the press of grass and dirt on his bare calves. He leaned on one arm and opened Dorian’s soft mouth.

Dorian touched the Bull’s line of scar tissue with his tongue, mouthed it. Heated blood shot through the Bull. Dorian reached a hand up to a horn, at the base, where it met the delicate skin above the ear.

“Yeah, all right,” said the Bull, nonsensically. He couldn’t seem to catch a full breath. Time was moving like slow sap. Dorian’s hands kept moving, clever and restless.

He finally, finally hiked those fucking skirts up, got his hands on Dorian’s firm waist, ground down where he could feel Dorian stiffening against his thigh. Dorian drew in a sharp breath.

“That good?” said the Bull. He investigated further.

“I’ll just let you get acquainted,” said Dorian, in a rush of breath.

The Bull explored, uncovering as much smooth, tan skin as he could with one hand at a time. He had the strong sensation of handling a wild hunting bird, a trust extended only as long as his purposes aligned with its wary nature.

The Bull twisted open another elaborate buckle, sucked on a soft space of skin just above Dorian’s ribs. Dorian made a noise.

“Shit, you like that.” The Bull stayed there for a bit. He wasn’t rushing to any immediate peak ahead, but it was there, in the hazy distance. He reached up to Dorian’s face and Dorian caught two of his fingers in his mouth, a startling plush heat.

Dorian’s robes, far from clean already, were now intimately familiar with the Emerald Graves dirt. The Bull wanted to pull the rest of Dorian’s fussy, over-fastened shit off, but he needed both hands. He rolled back over, hoisting Dorian up over him.

Dorian drew back. The Bull paused.

Dorian opened his mouth, took a breath, closed it. “Mm.” He shifted slightly. “Not ten minutes ago I was almost falling asleep on this quite disgusting wet ground, so perhaps we could — ah — table this for — a night when a giant hasn’t dropped a boulder on me. Not that —”

“Yeah,” said the Bull. His head was clear, seared open. “Whatever you want, that’s what I want.”

“Oh,” said Dorian. He searched the Bull’s face. “Well —” He broke off. “All right, then.”

The Bull took Dorian’s forearms where they rested on his chest. He pulled them down to Dorian’s sides and held them, loosely. Dorian allowed this.

“When we get back to Skyhold,” said the Bull, biting, just a little bit, at the join of Dorian’s neck and shoulder, “you’ll come to me.”

Dorian said something extremely profane in Tevene.

“Yeah. Is that what you want?”

“I — Fas —” said Dorian, incoherently, and then, after a little intake of breath, “Yes.”

The Bull let go. He rested his head back and breathed for a second. Dorian leaned very slowly onto his hands to push himself up.

A log cracked in the fire, sending up a barrage of sparks. A burst of hot ash stung the Bull’s foot, and he drew it back with a hiss. He gave Dorian a speaking look.

Dorian paused for a second, halfway onto his knees. “That was — _not_ —” he said, and burst into helpless laughter.

The Bull dragged a weak hand down his face and joined him, casting his eyes up to the strange leaves of his adopted home, dark against the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> *I can't wait to hear it.[back]  
†Of course, my dear.[back]
> 
> Sorry about Vivienne's thoughts on party composition! They're only 67% my own. (But I'm a three-mages kind of girl, so don't listen to anything I have to say about it.)


End file.
